With a slowdown in the market, Debbie Dunthorne is finding new challenges in her role as sales director for one of the region’s biggest new-build companies. But the job always has its challenges.

I HAVE worked for Miller Homes North East for eight years now, and in my role as sales director I’m responsible for managing a team of two area sales managers and 16 sales negotiators.

Based in our regional headquarters at Royal Quays at North Shields, I also make the strategic marketing decisions for the North East region.

Monday

MY working day normally starts around 8am. Every Monday morning I sit down in the office with the other directors for the sales build meeting.

These meetings provide a forum to discuss the sales taken from the previous week, agree on legal completion dates for those plots and address customer care and technical issues. I relay this information back to my sales team, who make the necessary changes to the build schedule, and our clients are updated accordingly.

The rest of the morning is spent catching up on emails and responding to phone messages.

I head out to our Cobblers Hall development in Newton Aycliffe in early afternoon to meet our options centre staff to discuss which of our extra options are proving most popular.

This meeting is a great time to decide on any additions or amendments we may need to make to the range, as buyers’ tastes are constantly changing and evolving.

It’s then on to a part-exchange meeting to discuss properties we own, as well as legal completion dates for properties currently under offer. Marketing strategies for these properties are also discussed.

Tuesday

TUESDAY mornings always start with a land strategy meeting in the office, where the land evaluation team present new land acquisition opportunities, research on current housing in the area and propose new prime opportunities.

One area that we’re heavily investing in is Blyth, as the demand for family housing here is huge and the area is becoming increasingly sought-after by younger buyers priced out of city centre locations.

In addition to our Sandringham Meadows development in the town, we’ve also invested in additional pieces of land which will be developed with stunning two-bedroom apartments and be launched later this summer.

After this, it’s back to my desk to catch up on local news on the JournalLive website before a customer care meeting. This is a quarterly presentation giving feedback on our client satisfaction surveys, completed once clients have legally completed. This week we receive fantastic feedback, with 86% of our customers saying they would recommend Miller Homes to their best friend! Rewarding.

Wednesday

MUCH of Wednesday is taken up by a meeting with our PR and advertising agencies, as well as our media buying house. At these meetings, I cascade down sales information and we prioritise which sites are key focuses for publicity in the following month.

At present, we’re concentrating on building first-time buyer confidence. We’ve helped so many young people take advantage of some fantastic deals recently, so it’s important that potential buyers realise there are affordable options out there. We currently have two-bedroom apartments at Church View in South Hylton, Earsdon View in Shiremoor and Sandringham Meadows in Blyth, priced from just £99,000. Value for money is important for all buyers.

Thursday

I SPEND most of today conducting directors’ site visits across the whole of the North-East, as we like to get on site as much as possible to gauge feedback from our sales team on the ground.

This really provides the best idea on to how the site has been received by local residents, where our customers are coming from and helps us to target our PR and advertising activity in the most effective way.

Friday

I’M up bright and early for a meeting with my two area sales managers and our in-house legal team, to discuss legal completions for this week, as well as check the progress of reserved plots to ensure that we get contracts exchanged, and discuss further prospects.

We’ve had a particularly pleasing few weeks of sales recently, with Church View proving particularly popular.

In the afternoon, I attend a customer relationship management meeting in the office. This is incredibly useful as the CRM system enables us to monitor the number of new leads received on a weekly basis, and pinpoints precisely where our current leads are coming from.

We also review sales advisers’ workloads for the coming week and ensure all information on the system is updated and correct.

Debbie Dunthorne is sales director of Miller Homes North East. For details of Miller Homes in the region, go to www.millerhomes.co.uk/explore or tel: 0870 336-4100.